Mr Green’s Gambling Regulator Woes Continue in Denmark

While players love Mr Green, the renowned online casino has been having a tough time with gambling regulators over the past few months.

Not even a month ago the Swedish Gaming Authority fined them SEK31.5 million (€3.1 million) for failing to adhere to the strict anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements of their licensing agreement.

Despite having informed the Swedish authorities of several high-value deposits totalling more than SEK 40 million, the regulator still found that there was a high probability that the operators had received and processed illegitimate funds.

While the case against Mr Green was not criminal it was intended to be a heavy enough blow to their bottom line to make them pay attention to AML and KYC procedures in future.

Taking Their Eye Off The Ball

September has seen Mr Green in hot water once again as the Danish Gambling Advertising Board (GAB) completed its review of a case that has been in limbo since December 2020.

In this instance, the newly formed GAB found that the advertisement, which aired just before a Christmas-themed show called Christmas Wish, fell foul of the country’s strict laws aimed at preventing children from being unduly influenced by online casino advertising.

While the Board in the case did not feel that the breach of Denmark’s code of conduct was not intentional, they still ruled against the operator stating:

“As the defendant, in this case, has not ensured that the gaming advertisement was not aimed at children and young people under the age of 18, we find that the marketing initiative was in violation of the rules on marketing in the Gaming Act and in the Code of Conduct for the Gaming Industry. We thus vote in favour of the board expressing criticism of this.”

While Mr Green did lose the case, the fact that there was no malice in the decision to air the advertisement before Christmas Wish led to nothing more than a slap on the wrist. However, should the casino face any further actions in Denmark the loss of this case will do them no favours.

 Should They Have Known Better?

While it is easy to dogpile on Mr Green admonishing them for being irresponsible in their choice of advertising slots, not everyone at GAB would agree.

While four of the Board members voted against Mr Green, the fifth member, Morten Rønde, had an opposing view. He held that the broadcaster, not the casino, should be taken to task for airing the advert before Christmas Wish and his argument makes a lot of sense.

When selling advertising spots to any potential advertiser Denmark’s channel TV2 presents the buyer with the available slots and their age ratings. In the case of Mr Green, they procured several slots which fell into the 18+ and 21+ categories, trusting that TV2 had correctly labelled their inventory.

However, given the festive season theme of Christmas Wish GAB held that Mr Green should have anticipated the interest it would hold of children despite the age rating provided by the media team of the channel.

Rønde countered this stating that offshore companies should be able to trust the information provided by the media outlets as they are the de facto experts on their viewership and that the gaming operators will not necessarily have any insights into local viewing habits.

Where do you fall in this debate? Should Mr Green have done more research into the potential viewership of the show given the theme or did TV2 drop the ball?